It was a peaceful early afternoon, too peaceful for his personal tastes. Nothing could rouse him from the tedium of writing up his report for the day. Everyone else had left for HamHamPangPang for lunch and left Heathcliff alone in the office to continue his lifeless stare at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head, the newest set of prosthetics he had installed while the others were crossed under his chest.

Multicrack Fixers were required to sport prosthetics, and that was the whole reason his mind became so depressingly blank. He couldn't feel. Not even as he spilled coffee and soaked his report papers, and especially not during on field contracts where it mattered most.

Fighting was as common as breathing back in the Backstreets of T Corp. If you could walk and talk, more often than not, you knew how to throw a punch or two. He wore his scars with pride, though so many of them were gone now ever since he opted for those damn prosthetics.

Maybe those cultists in District 14 have a point, not that he'd speak on it out loud. He had a certain bond with his fellow Fixers, bound by metal and blood alike. He could freely talk about their enhancements without fear of scrutiny, much less shame than it would have garnered elsewhere.

Hell, maybe that sense of camaraderie binds him here. Even then, had he left like he planned to and yet never did, where would a vagrant like him go? Not back to that manor, never. Not... not until he could become a better man for her. Hesitating endlessly, waiting for the day he could return to her arms and be the man she deserves.

Cathy...

Cliff....

How sweet it'd be to see her again.

Heathcliff.

Suddenly, he's swept away from his daydream and returned to the real world, looking down from the ceiling towards his colleague. So, someone stayed behind besides him after all.

"You say somethin'? Swear, my eardrums were more useful back then. Can't hear a bloody thing like I used to."

He rubbed his ears absent-mindedly, new enhancements for sure.